• Printing from w2k to win95 shared printer

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    #384203

    Hi,

    Our department is in the process of upgrading selected PCs. Our IT department is supplying Dells with Win 2000. This has led to a problem with existing users who are printing to shared printer on an old PC with win 95.

    Has anyone out any clues on how I can get this to work. When I search for a computer(network neighborhood) from the win 2000 PC, I can see our print server (the win95 PC) but I can’t see the printer.

    Any ideas?

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    • #658299

      Just hazarding a guess here, but the problem may be a driver issue. The 95 machine may not know about a 2000 driver for the printer.

      When you setup a Windows 2000 Print Server, you can select drivers for other operating systems to use.

      Just something to think about.

      • #658323

        “When you setup a Windows 2000 Print Server, you can select drivers for other operating systems to use.”

        Good thought, but the print server is the Windows 95 machine.

        • #658326

          I know you have a 95 print server…I was just suggesting that the problem may lie in the fact that you are trying to connect with a ‘future’ OS. Not that it helps you any, I was just pointing out what may be the problem…there I go not helping again! grin

        • #658496

          John,
          Don’t bother trying to search with network neighborhood. There seems to be some inconsistencies with Win95 and the new OSes networking. Have you tried adding a network printer? We have a shared printer on a Win95 machine that several Win2k boxes access successfully. All we did was add a network printer.

          Joe

          --Joe

          • #658521

            “All we did was add a network printer.”

            Thanks Joe. Would that be using the add printer wizard? If so, I tried that and I got as far as locating the w95 pc in the computer box, along with a little plus (to indicate a shared resource, I suppose) but trying to expand this only results in a brief hourglass and nothing revealed.

            • #658547

              John,
              Yes, it was the add printer wizard. Is this a domain or peer-to-peer network? Can you just type in the unc name for the printer?

              Joe

              --Joe

            • #658556

              “Is this a domain or peer-to-peer network? Can you just type in the unc name for the printer?”

              It’s a peer to peer network. Both machines are in the same workgroup. Typing in an identifier of the form dthxxxxvirologyprin just gives an error along the lines of “I can’t find a printer with that name, are you sure it’s there”

              Thanks for trying to help Joe

              John

            • #658857

              John, What network protocols are you running? You may want to consider NETBUI if you aren’t using it already. It sometimes does a better job on small peer-to-peer networks allowing different Windows versions to communicate than TCP/IP.

              Joe

              --Joe

            • #659198

              “You may want to consider NETBUI if you aren’t using it already”

              You win the coconut, joe!!!

              Adding NETBUI did the trick

              Thanks all..

    • #658321

      Yep, tried double-clicking. Although I can “see” the computer, if I double-click, it tells me that the computer can’t be found on the network.

      Thanks anyway.

    • #658549

      I do that here. There’s nothing to it really. You are running into an unrelated problem. W2k does have difficulty with Network Neighborhood. It just doesn’t browse it very well. Nevertheless, the underlying protocol does work. First, in your W2k machine, add a printer, picking appropriate W2k drivers. When it asks for the port, pick network port and give it the UNC name (servernamesharename). Don’t fuss with browsing for it.

      This does require you to know the W95 computer name and the printer share name before you start.

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